Your Day, Your Life, Your World
by Masked-Writer-In-Disguise
Summary: CHARACTER DEATH! 'I just wanted to let you know I get it and I will try to make it mine. I may be a little late... but I’ll make whatever’s left of it mine, my day, my life, my world.' Not Incest. Rated M for suicide.


_**Masked-Writer-In-Disguise:**__ Hey, I really have nothing to say about this one. I only want you to read it. Please. I don't really feel like being polite. I've had a long week…_

_**Disclaimer:**__ I don't own Naruto or Kakashi or Sakumo._

_**Inspiration: **__"Make it your day."(my dad tells this to me every day when I get out of the car in the morning.)_

&~o~o~o~o~o~o~&

_Your Day, Your Life, Your World_

_By: Masked-Writer-In-Disguise_

You know, I've always wondered what it's be like to die. Keep in mind that I'm in no particular hurry to jump off a cliff, or slit my wrists or stab myself in the stomach or do any other thing there is to off myself, but I can't help but be curious. Anyone who flirts with death on a daily basis would be. Was there some other place we went to when we died? Some great beyond where your soul could rest for eternity? Or was it simply a black void of nothingness that your soul is sent to? Was there a God and what was s/he like?

What was hell like? Was it a burning pit of fire like the Christians believed or was it a barren wasteland with a half-dead/half-alive mistress like the Norse believed?

Which one would I end up in? I'm an assassin for a living; a shinobi of Konoha and I've killed plenty of people. The main question is: Would I be considered a warrior or a murderer? I guess it all depends on your point of view. From my point of view, I'm a warrior; protecting my son and my village from active or possible threats. From the victims' families' point of view, I'm a murderer; I've taken away the life of their family members or loved ones. From Kakashi's point of view, I suppose I'm simply his father and I'll always be there for him.

I wonder what it would feel like to bleed out. I suppose it would be virtually painless. It would probably be cold what with all your heated blood running out of you. You'd probably end up numb too, but would you be aware or would you pass out? I suppose you'd pass out because people passed out from blood loss all the time. Bleeding out would probably be like falling asleep, then; the least painful way to die…

I frowned slightly as I looked at the five year old sitting in the middle of our living room surrounded by scrolls and books and pieces of scrap paper with his unnaturally neat five-year-old handwriting covering them, and I began to wonder what kind of world this is where children were trained to kill. My son was five, but he was months away from becoming a genin. I _am_ very proud of him, but should I be proud that he's on his way to living life as a killer. There's nothing glamorous about this life; only pain and fear and walking on the border line of insanity. I do not wish this life on anyone, but it's their own choice. It's Kakashi's choice, and he chose this life; it is his life to choose what he does or does not do.

I smiled sadly and shifted in my seat. Kakashi had taken to wearing a mask. I wasn't sure whether it was because he was tired of being told he looked just like me, because he was ashamed of me, or because he was making a fashion statement, his own self; I would prefer it if he were building his own self out of the ashes of my life rather than being ashamed of me. He had every reason to be ashamed of me. I had botched that mission, but to me, human life is far more important than that mission; the village would survive, find a way out. _Her_ life was far more important. He probably does despise me, somewhere deep inside of him, but he doesn't know it yet. Maybe if I died, he'd realize it; realize it and try to be everything I'm not, try to rebuild so that he was no longer himself, just another pawn in the game with two masks instead of one.

A page turned and I looked at my son, still sitting Indian-style in the middle of the room, not having moved at all. He had an amazing ability to sit in one position for hours on end. He was still reading a book on lightning manipulation; he'd discovered early on that lightning was his element on accident while I was teaching him a new jutsu. Kakashi was far more advanced than anyone else his age, and the village would be sure to exploit him to the fullest in the future, but that was the way of things. If you were a genius, you were valuable. They'd been exploiting the Hatake family for centuries.

"You're doing it again, dad," a small voice said, barely loud enough to be heard by someone without shinobi training, but as clear as day to me, shaking me from my musings.

"Hmm?" I questioned, my eyes focusing with sudden intensity; the image before me coming in sharp detail.

Icy blue eyes looked at me levelly. "You're staring at me with a sad look on your face. You've been doing that a lot lately, since the mission."

"I've been thinking," I said and looked out the window to my left.

"Well, stop thinking. Whatever you're thinking about isn't good for you," Kakashi said, showing a brief look into a mind well beyond his years, a mind so like his mother's. He was reading again, that book that most adults had trouble understanding, and I was thinking again.

Maybe my five year old son was right. Maybe I should forget about it. I did what I thought was right and that's what mattered.

"Dad," Kakashi said quietly.

"Hmm?"

"Make it your day."

Silence descended over the room again and I smiled. How many times had I told Kakashi that as he walked out the door to start his day at the Academy? Probably every single day since he started there and I'd probably say it every day until I died. It's what my father'd said to me and what his father'd said to him.

My eyes turned back to my son and my thoughts back to death. Maybe I could make it my day, my life, my world; maybe I could live just a little bit longer, if only to help Kakashi make it, the day, the life, the world his.

&~o~o~o~o~o~o~&

_Kakashi,_

_I'm sorry, but I couldn't make it mine, my day, my life, my world. I'd managed it once and I thought nothing could bring it falling down around my ears, but it did, and I don't have the courage to try to make it again. I tried for two years, and you were the only thing that kept me here, but life doesn't seem so bright a lure anymore. I miss my wife… You can still make it yours; your day, your life, your world. Don't let your life end like mine; make it yours and let the rest of the world be damned._

_I love you dearly._

_Your father,_

_Sakumo_

I read the note over once more, set it on my son's table in his bedroom and made my way to my study, my family's ceremonial kunai in hand. After two years, I guess I'll finally be able to find out what it's like to die, to stab myself in the stomach, to bleed out, to find out what waits for me; oblivion, burning flames, barren deserts, hall of warriors and feasts, streets of gold, sitting under an apple tree, my wife.

This would me my last great adventure, and I was ready to take it; I'd been ready to take it for two years. My only regret is leaving my son, leaving Kakashi, to face the world without me there, but he'd survive; he wouldn't live for a while; he'd do everything by the book, but he'd survive. He'd make it in this world where so few did because he was too stubborn to die, to give up; his friend at the academy, the Uchiha, was a good influence on him. I smiled; Kakashi was more like his mother than he knew.

As I stabbed and ripped into my gut I felt no pain, just peace. My fingers went numb first. Then my toes, hands, feet, legs, arms; my brain isn't functioning properly as I smile. Blackness edges my vision and I fall forward.

Sorry, Kakashi. Make it yours, your day, your life, your world…

&~o~o~o~o~o~o~&

Kakashi stood at his father's grave 23 years later with an old, crinkled up, yellowed piece of paper folded neatly in his right hand. Sasuke had been brought home three days earlier and that's what it took for Kakashi to finally get it: why his father had committed suicide. For the last two years he'd been dangerously close to it, himself. The only thing keeping him going was the possibility of bringing Sasuke back. The last two months had been hard for him, more so than the other 22 months.

He'd almost lost his hope, and if he hadn't gotten word as to Sasuke's whereabouts, he'd be dead right now by his own hand.

In his father's case, there was no redeeming what he'd done, except maybe in the eyes of the woman he'd saved. He couldn't've gone out to hunt it down and save it; he'd lost his honor. He'd've had to live with it for the rest of his life. Kakashi understood why he'd committed suicide, now, and he understood completely what his father meant when he'd written, 'Make it your own, your day, your life, your world,' in his letter.

He'd finally gotten it.

Kakashi knelt in front of the headstone that bore the name 'Hatake Sakumo' in his family's private plot and reached up to trace the name with careful fingers. Sure, he could've done this at the memorial stone when he went to pay his respects to his other precious people, but being here just seemed more private; him and his dad. There was only one name carved into this stone, after all.

Paper rustled as he brought the aged letter forward.

"Hey, dad," Kakashi whispered aloud. He frowned at the sound of his own voice, he was used to thinking what he had to say to his friends and family, but he continued on. "I think I finally get it; why you saved your teammate then committed suicide. I didn't get it when Rin was captured or when Obito died to save her, but, now that one of my own students, the equivalent of my sons, has been kidnapped and hurt, I get it, and I'm sorry for hating you for it."

Kakashi smiled sadly and sat as he always used to sit when he was younger, Indian style, before his father had died and he'd tried to not do anything that would remind him of the man that he had thought abandoned him. "I get what you were thinking when you used to look at me with that sad smile on your face because I think the same thing whenever I look at my team. I don't have any kids, but they're _like_ my kids, those three boys.

"I just wanted to let you know I get it and I will try to make it mine. I may be a little late," a short, bitter chuckle, "but I'll make whatever's left of it mine, my day, my life, my world."

&~o~o~o~o~o~o~&

_**Masked-Writer-In-Disguise:**__ Well, there it is. Let me know if he ending was a bit cheesy. I think it was, but other people may like it. Just tell me._


End file.
